


sensations

by Asher__Queen



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Accidental Kissing, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Body Worship, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian is blunt as hell, F/M, Hot Mess Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It was supposed to be a two shot, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Explicit, POV Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Rough Kissing, Self Confidence Issues, Sharing Clothes, Two Shot, boyfriend shirt, or - Freeform, past depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27549742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asher__Queen/pseuds/Asher__Queen
Summary: For a guy who's so emotionally constipated, Damian sure has an easy time embarrassing Marinette!Marinette has been rooming with Damian since the beginning of school, and she'd always felt comfortable around her roommate, even if her friends told her to exercise caution. But Damian was a good guy, a trustworthy guy, so why bother with being overly-cautious? That's how she felt about living with her sexy as all hell roommate for a long while - at least, that was before he suddenly mentioned how beautiful she is, and how attractive he finds her to be....Maybe - Just maybe! - it might've been better to take her friend's' words of advice.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Comments: 16
Kudos: 170





	1. Why are you so blunt?!

“How do you  _ not  _ understand how gorgeous you are?”

Marinette felt her cheeks  _ burn _ at the question, and she turned back to look at Damian, only to look away again at the intensity in his gaze. “I’m just not… Confident, I guess,” She muttered, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear and bowing her head. Damian’s confusion was evident when he stayed quiet, and she turned around with their mugs of tea.

There was a subtle crease between his brows, an unusually downwards curve on his lips. She attributed that confusion to whatever strange thing that was going on in his mind.

So Marinette set her tea down on her favourite coaster in their apartment - the one with the blue, red, and pink resin geode design - and tapped his shoulder, joining him on the couch. “H-Here you go,” Marinette stammered, and he soundlessly accepted the mug.

If she flushed a bit when their fingers brushed, he didn’t say a word.

“I suppose I can understand being self-conscious, or maybe even overly self-conscious, but to have no confidence whatsoever? You’re ravishing - I can’t understand why it would be difficult for you to realize that.”

_ Ravishing,  _ he said. Was it that cut and dry?

He sounded so sure yet confused at the same time. Marinette licked her suddenly dry lips, turning her attention back to the movie they were supposed to be watching. But she could feel his gaze on her skin, no matter how badly she tried to focus on the film.

Damian wasn’t one to beat around the bush, so, when the TV suddenly shut off, she flinched. “I’m not that pretty, Oiseau. Also, I need to watch this film for my assignment tomorrow.” “Deflection isn’t very charming, Dupain-Cheng, so I can understand what you mean.”

“What-Why are we even on this issue? Where in our conversation did we start talking about how attractive we are?”

“Yesterday, while you were inebriated, you mentioned something about how ‘breathtakingly sexy I am’. I simply wished to revisit the topic.” 

Marinette felt her blush grow tenfold, and she grabbed her mug, taking a long drag of her tea to distract her mouth from saying something stupid. But, when the scalding hot liquid hit the back of her throat, she recoiled, gasping in shock. The rest of the tea jostled in her cup, spilling down her tank top and onto her shorts.

God must’ve been orchestrating something, seeing as she’d been wearing a purely  _ white  _ tank top. And she felt comfortable enough with Damian that, seeing as her breasts were so small, she walked around without a bra.

Immediately, Damian grabbed the towel they kept beneath the throw blanket on the couch and handed it to her, averting his eyes. 

  
And Marinette whimpered, looking down at her slowly reddening skin. Ever since acquiring the Ladybug Miraculous, she’d become much more sensitive to temperature, specifically the cold. But heat made her far more active, in more ways than one. 

But she dutifully mopped up the tea, mourning the fresh tea leaves she’d received from Master Fu, and stood to go clean herself up. 

When Damian caught her wrist, though, she froze. His palm was warm, exceptionally warm, and Marinette whined. The warmth of his skin only exemplified how quickly her skin was cooling, and she wanted - even a little - to come closer.

So she snatched her wrist away, cradling it to her chest. “What is it?” 

Surprisingly, she could just barely make out the slight hurt in his voice when he replied, “There’s tea on your leg.” Marinette grabbed the towel she’d deposited on the coffee table and cleaned it up as well as she could.

  
Damian huffed softly. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t intend on startling you or making you uncomfortable.” He gently took a hold of the towel, and, when she let go of it, the fabric brushed against the back of her thigh, making her jolt. 

“If you’d rather watch the film without me, I won’t object. Feel free to,” He murmured, and Marinette recognised that, for the first time, he’d dropped that usual air of arrogance. He was brutally honest, lowkey cruel, and slightly awkward. But, when he was like this, she could understand how vulnerable he had to feel.

Emoting wasn’t normal for him - or, at least, expressing his real feelings about something. 

And, because of that, she sighed and said, “Let me go change, and we can keep watching. Okay?” If it were anybody else, she knew she’d probably react the same way. But it was a little different for Damian on three different grounds:

1.He was a lot more sensitive to how people felt than he let on. Whenever she was upset, she’d find a horrifyingly expensive bar of chocolate on her pillow that night. He’d deny that he left them there for until the sky fell and she’d never believe him.

2.Damian was a lot more sensitive himself than anyone outside of his inner circle knew. He was human - not unfeeling like so many people said - and he was quick to feel something. To one extreme or another, he experienced emotions.

3.And, finally, he was so emotionally constipated that, while he felt emotions, he couldn’t fully understand them. So, to openly display his feelings like that, Marinette knew that he was sincerely sorry and meant no ill will.

As soon as she was in her room, she grabbed the closest pillow and buried her face in it, muffling her squeal. Of fucking  _ course _ , Drunk!Marinette just had to screw her over, telling him that. 

But he’d said that she was gorgeous. He’d sounded so confident about it like he was stating a known fact. 

Which only fuelled her squeals even more. It wasn’t, at all, like the most handsome twenty-something she’d seen in all her twenty-two years had just told her that she was attractive. No, not at all. After her quick (read: not quick) squealing fit that he definitely heard, she stripped out of her wet clothes and deposited them in her pink dirty clothes hamper.

She remembered something crucial just as she went to grab something clean to wear, though.

She’d completely forgotten to do her laundry. Her only options were to steal something from Damian or wear something dirty. But was there ever an actual choice?

* * *

He was staring again.

When she sat back down on the couch, wearing one of  _ his  _ hoodies, Marinette could feel his stare burning her skin. She was ready to yeet herself across the room if he didn’t stop. She tugged on the hem, trying to cover a little more of her thighs, and sat down. But he was still staring. 

As soon as she looked back at him, he was facing the screen though, so she let him be. The movie was interesting, even if the clothing was entirely inaccurate for the time - “Women weren’t wearing petticoats anymore, Damian!” - and she’d learned quite a bit. Mostly, she learned about the lack of willingness to research time-appropriate attire in Hollywood.

It wasn’t completely hopeless, though. 

She had to watch the film and modify the designs of both main characters’ attire for her assignment. Damian was simply watching to keep her company. But, when she started brainstorming, she couldn’t focus. 

Sometimes, when she got struck by some random stroke of creativity, it was easy to drown out the rest of the world. There was nothing more than herself, her favourite 2B pencil, and her sketchbook.

Other times, it was easier to take in the world around her, to draw inspiration from anything and everything.

This time, however, neither situation applied. 

Then she groaned, running her fingers through her hair in frustration and reclining into the cushions. “Damian, you realize you’re staring, right?” Marinette moaned, but Damian said nothing in reply. Instead, when she looked at him, his eyes seemed fixated on some point on her body.

Damian suddenly reached out, dazed, and pulled his shirt further down her thighs yet again, and Marinette’s face flared with heat.

“Um… Thanks?” He seemingly startled at that, and looked up at her, blinking owlishly. “You’re welcome?” His hand was resting on the fabric, and she could feel the heat of his skin through the cotton. And she was lowkey scared of how easily she accepted his touch.

She couldn’t focus on anything - other than where his eyes strayed, the warmth of his hand, the curling fingers that brushed along the skin of her thigh,  _ Damian _ in his entirety. 

The tension that suddenly made itself known between them was as intoxicating as it was suffocating, and, if it helped break it in the slightest, Marinette felt tempted to just _kiss_ him. But that wouldn’t help at all. If anything, it would probably make things worse. 

Marinette sighed, wincing when her throat twinged, and quietly murmured, “I think I should probably head back to my room for the night.”

Before he could reply, though, she was already gone and her door was closing behind her back.


	2. Your hot roommate did WHAT now?!

It took longer than a week for Marinette to finally be able to look Damian in the eye.

The tension in their apartment had grown so great that they both spent the majority of their time outside of the apartment. And Marinette was finally sick of it. But she had no idea how to address the issue at hand, and she really needed the help.

She called Alya.

“ _Girl, as much as I love you, do you_ know _what time it is?”_ Marinette looked at the time on her phone and promptly flinched. “Sorry, Alya, but I need some help.” There was a long pause, and she heard the sound of shuffling on the other side of the phone, as well as a sleepy Nino's grumbles. Alya returned. " _Okay, spill. What do you need help with?"_

Marinette was sure her cheeks were bright red from just thinking about it. Her sexy " _I could care less if I should wear a shirt around the house,_ ” roommate telling her that she was beautiful. And, yeah, she'd been told that she was beautiful before. But Damian wouldn't get anything out of telling her that. He was so gorgeous that girls would've made a line down the block for a chance to kiss him. 

He was just _that_ desirable.

But she wasn't. The messed up part of her brain had told her for years that no one would find her beautiful, that no one would ever want her. She was mediocre compared to her friends - who were all well-proportioned _everywhere_. Marinette knew that, even if she tried, she wouldn’t be able to catch up to anyone in their friend group.

“ _M_ , _girl, talk to me. What’s happening?”_ “How am I supposed to say that my roommate said that I’m gorgeous!” Again, the line went quiet, and Marinette bit her lip, waiting for a reply. And, when Alya replied, she replied with a deep sigh.

“ _Babe, I’m going to say two things, and two things only. One thing is: You_ are _gorgeous. Seriously! I understand that some stuff happened around the time Hawkmoth disappeared, but you bounced back. You’re breathtaking, girl._

_And two: I told you it was a bad idea to room with someone you don’t know! Luka lives in Gotham too - you could’ve moved in with him!”_

Marinette couldn’t help but roll her eyes at that. “Please tell me that you remember why I said I wouldn’t move in with him.” “ _I-I… Don’t.”_

She carelessly dropped her phone on her bed, massaging her temples, and groaned. “He told me that he was in love with me during our last year of high school - or lycée, I don’t know. I’m more concerned about the fact that the most attractive man I’ve ever met told me that I’m ravishing. And I don’t know what to do with that information.”  
  
“ _Do whatever you want with it. You can take him seriously, and freak out. Or you can accept the compliment.”_ “Alya, I had a _dream_ about him after that whole fiasco-!” A sharp knock sounded on her door, and she quickly interrupted her friends’ squawking, “Oh, désolé maman! Je dois partir maintenant! Vais-je vous parler à nouveau la semaine prochaine? Oui? Je te parlerai alors - je t'aime!!”

“Marinette?”

Her head jerked upwards, looking up at him, and she flushed under the weight of his gaze. “Tonight is your night to make dinner, so I was going to ask if you’d started-.” “Fuck! The sauce!” Marinette dashed out of the room, ducking under Damian’s arm, and rushed into the kitchen.

And she sagged against the counter in relief.

* * *

“I’m vegan. Surely, you remember that.” 

She nodded softly, not looking up from the food she was preparing, and said, “I made an alternative for us to eat. Are you okay with chickpeas?” “Chickpeas are fine. Thank you.”

And they sat in silence as she prepared the food. The silence stretched, extending far longer than it should’ve, and Damian finally broke it after she plated the food. “What did you make?” A neutral question. A not-so neutral answer. “Shawarma.” 

He hummed softly and moved out of the way when she headed into the dining room, following after her patiently. 

Or, maybe not-so patient since he immediately sat down once his plate was on the table and started eating. “Why shawarma? I didn’t know that you were familiar with Arab dishes.” Marinette blushed.

If she was trying to be honest with herself, she would’ve said that it was because she was trying to make up for ditching him the week before. But she wasn’t trying to be honest with herself. No, not at all, not a chance.

“I-I’ve been feeling a little homesick, but I thought that it might be worse for you - since you’ve been here longer than I have.”

Another hum. _Kwami_ , it was awkward. Seemingly the only good thing that came out of their situation was the fact that Damian enjoyed his food - she could hardly taste hers. But she finished, wiping her mouth with a napkin, and collected her plate. “A-Are you done?” She mumbled, and he nodded softly, handing her the dish.

“Thank you for the meal,” He said, sincere, and Marinette sighed. Sure, eating with him hadn’t been too easy, but Damian’s soft grin was worth the awkwardness. She’d had no hidden intentions behind making him a piece of home. But, after seeing how comfortable he looked, she figured that there was no time like the present to deal with things.

“You’re welcome.”

But, instead, she found herself taking the dishes and walking back into the kitchen. He walked in after her, leaning back against the counter as she washed the few dishes she’d left, and watched her.

  
“You have something you want to say. Why don’t you?” Her anxiety spiked, and she looked over her shoulder to see him looking down at her, his eyes heavy-lidded. It would’ve been easy to just say everything she was thinking, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her mouth.

Surprisingly, though, it looked as though he understood what she was struggling with, and those beautiful emerald green eyes went soft. “You aren’t required to tell me, of course. If you’d rather not say anything at all, I won’t bother you about it.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but the reassurance was welcomed. They both knew that he’d manage to wheedle it out of her somehow - even if he promised not to try. 

But Marinette just sighed, put the plate in her hands in the drying rack, and turned around to face him. “I’ll be honest, I guess.” She clenched her eyes shut tight, taking a deep breath, “You already know this, but I have extremely low self-esteem - and it’s mostly because I’ve had some really bad experiences with people that I’ve liked in the past. So I’m not used to feeling a… _s-sexual_ attraction to someone and it’s even _slightly_ reciprocated.”

In the silence that followed, Marinette felt her cheeks grow warm with shame, and she let her head hang. The last time a situation like this had happened, things hadn’t gone well. And her confidence had taken a huge blow.

A sharp scoff startled her enough to make her eyes pop open.

She looked up at him, ready to run back to her room, but whatever she was going to say died on the tip of her tongue. Damian’s brows were furrowed, his eyes gaining that usual sharp edge all over again. Was he frustrated with her? That would explain why he looked like he wanted to hit something.

“Well, even if those dolts weren’t interested in you then, I _am_ interested in you now.”

“What- Why are you so blunt?! That’s-!” 

“Because it’s the truth. I don’t see any reason to censor myself,” Damian stated pointedly, and Marinette’s entire face exploded with heat. This time, though, it was out of pure embarrassment. So, even if Damian wasn’t bashful, she got flustered enough for both of them.

In fact, she got so distracted by her embarrassment that she didn’t notice Damian coming closer until he was right there, a mere foot away from her. 

And his surprisingly soft hands cupped her cheeks, gently lifting her face. All she saw on his face was pure compassion. Damian spoke on a sigh, his soft tone matching the slight intimacy of their position, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Malak. I’d thought that you would be receptive to a relationship with me, so I decided to be honest - seeing as it’s more difficult to misunderstand something that stated that plainly.”

“You’re right,” She murmured, only to squeak a moment later. “Malak? What does that mean?” 

Unconsciously, she leaned closer to him, entranced by the deep emerald shade of his eyes. There were small flecks of grey around his pupil, a sign of his slight Chinese descent, and they looked like they were glowing.

“Angel. It means angel.”

A little smile tugged on her life, but she was more focused on the scent of warm leather and iron clinging to his skin than the happy somersaults her heart was performing in her chest. “And what does that make you?” “I suppose, maybe the lucky fool who gets to take you out on a date.”

“I think we could work something out,” Marinette teased, smirking, and he let out a short breath of air - his cute little version of a laugh. “I would hope that we could.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Oh, désolé maman! Je dois partir maintenant! Vais-je vous parler à nouveau la semaine prochaine? Oui? Je te parlerai alors - je t'aime!!" This means, "Oh, sorry mom! I have to go now! Will I speak to you again next week? Yes? I'll talk to you then - I love you!" I'm sorry that I hadn't updated for a bit - I've been working on some other projects I have.


End file.
